by Sara Pascoe
Raya was surprised, but figured she should be flattered. She wandered over to the most recently delivered tray of food and took a plateful when she saw Helena with a group of girls and joined them. But Helena acted a bit funny, like she didn’t know Raya.
In any event, this got Raya a lot of attention for her eyes. A number of girls leaned in to get a good look. One even gasped, claiming she could see her future in them, and ran away either shrieking or giggling. This all got to be a bit much, so Raya was relieved to have the excuse of returning to her table to do more readings. But they went on for hours. Oscar sat by her feet, and occasionally on her lap. For every one she did, that person seemed to send two or three more friends.
The sounds of evening birds and bugs filtered in, and the musicians slowed to a gentle stop. Staff lit the jewel-toned glass lanterns that hung on chains from the ceiling. Finally, guests started departing. Raya heard boatmen calling to each other and the occasional clatter of oars. She looked out the windows and saw the last blades of sun slash the Bosphorus. She realised she hadn’t looked out once since she arrived. She was tired. The idea of transporting herself back to the han sounded wonderful; the quickest commute. Now, to concoct an excuse to disappear. Or should I show off?
Mrs Karatay walked up to Raya holding a pretty cloth pouch. ‘Thank you, Rachel. You added just the right touch to our party. We received many compliments about your readings. A number of people said they would like to you to read for them again.’
Helena was across the room saying goodbye to some friends while servants cleared up.
‘You’re very welcome, Mrs Karatay. It was lovely being included in such a won-der-ful par-ty…’ Raya didn’t realise she was trailing off. She was visualizing her cosy bed at the han, a steaming cup of mint tea, and Oscar curled up at the foot. Raya forced her focus back to where she was and picked up the cat. She saw Mrs Karatay and Helena peering at her, concerned. Or was it confused? Mrs Karatay held the cloth pouch and said something, but Raya couldn’t hear her, then – POP. She was back at the han.
Raya landed less than gracefully on her bed. Oscar spilled out of her arms. It was good to be home.
The door creaked open. Macide appeared.
‘Well, hello, dear. I thought I heard you in here. I’m afraid everyone’s been terribly worried. Can you come out here for a few minutes?’ Macide said, then disappeared back behind the door.
‘Do I have to go in there, now?’ Raya said, really to herself.
‘Hey, they know where you live,’ Oscar said.
Raya stood up and took in a big breath as though she was about to go underwater, then opened the door to Macide’s. There were lots of those colourful glass lanterns lit around the room. Four worried faces sat looking at her: Macide, Abbas, Bryony, and Musta.
Oh no.
‘Rachel, where have you been?’ Bryony said, then continued in head chat. ‘You locked down your thoughts so completely, I thought you were dead.’ She choked back a sob.
‘It’s OK. She’s safe now,’ Macide said.
‘I’m sorry,’ Raya said meekly. Bryony seemed upset beyond Raya’s being her ticket home.
‘That was very selfish, young lady,’ Musta said.
Abbas’s usually warm eyes were beacons of anguish.
Then Raya felt it. Each of them had been truly worried about her: she felt it.
Bryony hugged her. ‘I can’t tell you how glad I am to see you – in one piece – and how mad I am–’
‘That’s some dress, Rachel. Where did you get that?’ Macide interrupted.
Raya took a deep breath. ‘The Karatays.’
‘What?’ Abbas said. ‘I thought you hated them.’
‘I bumped into them yesterday at the baths, and they asked if I could go and do readings at Helena’s birthday party today. So… I DID transport on purpose with Oscar – and back again.’
‘Oh, Rachel,’ Musta said.
‘Why are you here, Uncle Musta?’ Raya said.
‘When it got to dinnertime and I hadn’t seen you at the coffee house, I came here to find out if you were all right,’ Musta said.
Raya groaned. She looked around the room, there were empty coffee cups, half-eaten plates of food, Macide’s needlework lay in a heap on a couch. She got a flash of the scene that had been; the four of them keeping vigil, trying to figure out what to do.
‘I’m really, really sorry,’ Raya said. This felt good, but raw – people caring so deeply.
‘Well, you’re safe and sound and that’s all that matters,’ Macide said, giving her a squeeze around the shoulders. Raya could tell Macide was holding off Bryony’s anger as much as getting her to bed. ‘Come on, let’s all turn in for the night; tomorrow’s another day.’
* * *
Raya woke up to a soft knock at her door – Bryony. She and Oscar yawned and stretched. Bryony sat on the bed across from them, fiddling with a pillow. A leaden silence filled the room.
‘Do you ever think about home, besides for your practice? You know, home-home?’ Bryony asked.
‘I don’t,’ Oscar said. He jumped down and sat by the door to the balcony, twitching his tail. Bryony opened it for him.
Raya looked away. ‘Yeah, I do. Sometimes.’ Morning noises filtered in – a camel grumbled.
‘Tell me, exactly what do you think about when you think about home?’
Raya felt exposed. ‘Um, I think about the Cosmic sometimes, and the fun I had there. About Ian and Emma and of course Pavel…’ Her voice trailed off. ‘But that usually gets me to thinking about Jake, and well…’ Tears filled her eyes, they collected, threatening to plop down in large fat drops.
Bryony reached over and cupped her hand over Raya’s. The tears tumbled out and she cried in earnest. She let Bryony sit next to her and give her a proper hug. ‘Shh, it’s normal to be worried, upset. It’s good to let it out.’ They were quiet for a moment.
There was a tap at the door and Macide peeked in. ‘Oh, sorry. I didn’t mean to intrude. Just wanted to tell you breakfast is ready when you are.’ She disappeared again behind the door.
Bryony smoothed her dress, the one Raya got for her. ‘Raya, I know this is terrible pressure on you. It truly is. No young person should have so much responsibility, and you shouldn’t have to be responsible for a grown-up,’ she sighed then stood up. ‘And for your bloody social worker on top of that, eh?’ She smiled, trying to make a joke of it, but there was sadness in her eyes.
Raya thought about it for the first time – what it must be like to be as old as Bryony, probably someplace in her thirties, and have your future depend on some kid. Some mixed up fourteen-year-old. Well, Raya hadn’t asked for all this either.
Bryony put her hand on the door. ‘Come on, let’s get some breakfast.’
* * *
There were two loud knocks at Macide’s door. Abbas answered it. It was a groundsman with another man in long brocade robes, white billowing trousers and a turban – a messenger from the Karatay family. Raya looked up when she heard the name.
‘I am here to relay a message to Rachel of London,’ the messenger said.
Macide nodded for Raya to respond.
‘Yes, I am Rachel… um… of London.’ She felt funny getting this attention in front of Bryony.
The messenger extended his arm, offering a cloth pouch to Raya, the same one Mrs Karatay had been holding out to her after the party.
‘That’s not mine, sir. I’m sorry you came all this way,’ Raya said to the messenger.
Macide stepped next to Raya and nudged her. ‘I think they’re trying to pay you.’
‘Yes, these are your earnings from your work for the Karatays yesterday,’ the messenger said.
Raya blushed and wrinkled her forehead. ‘But I thought I was a guest.’ Then, everyone but Raya laughed.
‘The Karatays have been getting enquiries. They hope you don’t mind, but they have been giving out your contact information. But only to the best people,’ the messenger said. He gave
a brief bow and left.
Raya loosened the drawstring and spilled the coins on the table. Her eyes were wide – this was quite a haul. Abbas manoeuvred back to the table and counted the coins for her.
‘You’ve been paid very well, young lady. That’s more than I would have earned in a week as a janissary.’
Raya bit her lip, delighted, confused and embarrassed.
‘You have to understand, people such as the Karatays only make friends with people who are very rich and influential. To them, you’re a service provider,’ Abbas said.
‘Yeah, I don’t know what I was thinking. That their sort would ever really want to be friends with me.’ She pocketed a few coins and put the rest back in the pouch.
‘Come on, don’t feel bad. You knew in the bottom of your human heart what these people were like,’ Oscar said.
‘I guess,’ Raya said, still hurt.
‘But hey, it was a good party wasn’t it?’ Oscar brushed against her ankles. This was new, the cat trying to cheer her up.
Abbas got up from the table and patted her on her scarf-covered head. ‘Being young isn’t always easy, is it?’ Raya shook her head, but Abbas didn’t wait for a reply, ‘Believe me, I know how seductive to the soul wealth and power can be.
* * *
After her warm-up transports in the han, she sat on one of the stone benches in the courtyard with Oscar on her lap. She imagined the Grand Bazaar in all its glory, smelled the coffee, and POW!
Ah, to be back in the Büyük Çarşi. The sights, the sounds, the smells, the donkeys.
‘Hold that thought,’ Oscar said when she tried to put him down. After two donkeys laden with goods ambled past, she could feel the cat exhale.
‘OK, now’s good, thanks,’ Oscar said, and she put him down.
The crowd flowed around them; a few people stared at her.
‘Do you think they recognize me from my coffee readings?’ Raya said.
Oscar looked at her flatly. ‘Get over yourself. You forgot your veil.’
‘Agh!’ she said aloud, feeling embarrassed. She reached in her pocket. There was no veil, but she felt the coins she’d taken from the pouch. She stepped into the first stall with veils and apologized for being without one. Good thing everyone could see she wasn’t from there.
‘Come on, let’s go find Uncle Musta. I need to talk to him,’ she said.
She located the coffee house and stood in the doorway, Oscar next to her. Soon a waiter recognized her and brought her a table and chairs.
‘Ah, Rachel, you and your light eyes are good for business. Like a living nazarlik – lucky charm that keeps away the evil eye,’ the proprietor said.
She’d always hated her eyes, like dirty sea water. But now they were useful, making her easily recognizable, despite the scarf and veil.
‘Thank you. And thank you for letting me read here again. Is it all right it my cat joins me today?’ Raya said.
‘Of course,’ the proprietor said and waved at the waiter, who brought another chair for Oscar and a cup of coffee on the house. She people-watched and thought about a future in Istanbul.
When Uncle Musta came in while she was in the middle of a reading, she felt a wave of relief. He had a coffee while she finished, then suggested they take a walk.
‘Rachel, is everything all right? It’s not like you to lie to your auntie – your sneaking off to the Karatays’s party,’ he said as the three ambled down the crowded bazaar street.
‘Oh, Uncle Musta, I don’t know what to do. I thought maybe you’d have some advice,’ she said.
Musta nodded at the many people who knew him. ‘About what?’ he said.
‘About whether I should stay here, in Istanbul, or return to England. My auntie wants to return home soon, but I don’t think I want to go,’ she said.
‘Well then, why don’t you stay and she goes? You’re old enough. And we’re here to help.’
If only it was that simple. She thought for a minute.
‘Sure, we could go our separate ways. It’s just that my auntie had promised my mother she would stay with me until I turn eighteen, and with my mother dying and everything, it’s hard for my auntie to break that promise.’ She thought she might as well stick to the story Bryony concocted back in old England.
‘Ah, I see,’ Musta said. They walked along in silence. Musta stopped by a sherbet seller and bought two glasses. They found a stone bench and sat down. Oscar jumped up and butted his head against Musta, who stroked the cat.
‘It sounds like you don’t want to be responsible for making your auntie break her promise to her sister who’s passed away – that this would feel like a betrayal, maybe to your mother as well.’
Raya nodded and sipped her sherbet.
More people said hello to Musta as they passed. A man stopped briefly. Musta introduced Raya as his niece. She felt a rush of warmth.
‘Rachel, as you consider a life on your own, this is part of it, making these difficult decisions, and facing the fact that sometimes we end up disappointing or upsetting people, including people we love. This is for you to decide, Rachel.’
The sherbet seller collected their cups. Musta stood up. ‘Alas, dear niece, it’s time for me to go.’
Raya stayed on the bench after Musta left, thinking about what he’d said. The light shifted to pastel, the relentless heat of the Turkish summer receding.
‘May I be excused? I think I’ll take my dinner into my room,’ Raya said.
Abbas started to say something, likely that she shouldn’t be excused from the look on his face, but Macide interjected. Bryony didn’t say anything.
‘Of course you can, dear,’ Macide said and put more food on Raya’s plate before she took it with her. Raya motioned with her head for Oscar to follow and he did – after a huff.
She closed the door with great relief, put the plate on the shelf and sat on her bed. ‘Oh, Oscar. I don’t know what to do. I mean I’m responsible for getting Bryony back home, and I don’t know if I want to go.’
‘Oh, you know what you want all right. You want to stay here. That’s obvious.’ He stood on his hind legs, stretched up against the wall and sniffed towards the shelf. ‘Hey, you gonna eat that?’
Raya placed the plate on the floor for him. ‘Why does it seem like my life is always interrupted for other people and their problems?’
‘Yeah, it’s not fair, is it?’ But it wasn’t Oscar responding to her. She recognized the annoying voice of that kitchen jinn from the other day.
Oscar looked up from his plate, and if a cat could laugh, he would have been. ‘Boy, that’s ugly, even for a jinn. Looks like a cross between a rat, a frog and a bottlebrush. What’s he saying?’
‘Tell that flea motel he’d make a good footstool,’ the jinn said into Raya’s ear. She batted away the tickly feeling. ‘Nothing, he’s just spouting the usual jinn rubbish.’
Oscar licked some crumbs off his front and walked towards the door. ‘Do you want me to go get Bryony, to get rid of it?’
‘No!’ she accidentally barked. ‘I need some time without her – to try to sort my head out.’
‘I’ll help,’ crackled the jinn.
Raya ignored it and turned to Oscar, ‘Stay, Oscar. Help me figure this out.’
Oscar hopped on the now unused bed and curled in a circle. ‘OK.’
Raya talked it through with Oscar. She realised she did want to stay in Istanbul.
‘I don’t know, Raya. It’s different for me to stay here. I am a cat – I mean, you’ll live a lot longer. Won’t you miss all that stuff back home that you humans do so much, like watching telly?’
‘What’s “telly”?’ the bottlebrush jinn asked.
‘It’s kind of like a box with lots of moving pictures.’
‘Don’t’ talk to it – you know what they’re like. OK, what about, the Internet, your mobile? Your friends?’ Oscar said.
The jinn asked about the first two, and when Raya thought about it, they were more boxes with
buttons and pictures. And as far as friends, really the only ones she cared about she’d only known a few weeks – the gang at the Cosmic, and Angie and Jake. The longer this lopsided conversation continued the more she found herself agreeing with Bottlebrush. Oscar must have sensed it, or had had enough because he leapt onto the windowsill and jumped out as soon as Raya opened the shutters for him.
She felt another release when Oscar left. She let herself feel it – this very weird and difficult decision. She wanted to stay here in Istanbul, even more than she had wanted to stay at the Cosmic. This felt like home. Now, how to tell Bryony?
‘Why tell her?’ the jinn suggested. ‘She’ll find out soon enough. You’ve only got seven more days, right?’
Raya gasped. ‘How do you know that?’
‘Jinn know LOTS of things – we’re the beings made of fire, remember?’
She started to ask him what that had to do with it, but thought better of it. Talking to jinn was like arguing with a spring made of jelly. She didn’t know how Bryony did it.
She fell into a dark, dreamless sleep.
* * *
The next day, their eighth in Istanbul, was normal, if you can call practising transporting at the han, then to the Grand Bazaar, doing some coffee cup readings, stopping at the baths then transporting home, all the while brushing that nosey jinn off her shoulders ‘normal’. The only different thing was her avoiding Bryony. She thought she should tell Bryony her decision to stay – the stand-up thing to do, but she couldn’t face it.
‘Who cares? Stand up. Sit down, do the hokey-cokey and turn yourself around.’ The jinn’s voice dissolved into a snorting laugh. She was glad he found himself so entertaining, maybe he’d give her a break.
Shortly after she transported back home, Abbas knocked on her door and asked if he could have a minute.
‘Here, Rachel, we want you to have this,’ he said offering a little wooden box with one of those blue glass eyes they called nazarlik on the lid. These good luck charms were everywhere, on all the houses, shops, sewn onto clothes. There were so many, you stopped noticing them.